Just when car insurance quotes were coming down again (well for the Mr and I at least) it seems it was short lived. The latest EU rulings stipulate that insurers cannot discriminate on the basis of gender when it comes to insurance premiums and quite rightly so, but what does that mean for us?
Well as you may know already, car insurance premiums have been cheaper for woman for years now. Insurance premiums for young male drivers has almost been extortionate as they were considered to be 10 times more likely to be injured or even killed in driving accidents than a driver over the age of 45. So how are they going to even out the playing field? Of course its only fair to reduce the cost of premiums for male drivers, which is great news. The Mr is pleased that he will finally hit the 25 years old benchmark for insurers and also that his insurance will now also be lower because his gender will no longer be a factor against him. The drop cannot be that steep though as they need to make money somewhere and in the loss that the insurers will make they will now make up for by balancing it out, men’s insurance premiums with drop and the bit that I am not too happy about, women’s insurance is set to rise. If the government figures are anything to go by, insurance is estimated to rise by as much as 24% for women aged 17-25, that could be an additional £362.
What can you do to help combat the insurance hike?
We all know that smaller cars can often lead to cheaper insurance policies and generally the same rule applies to the engine size. Unless you have a large family that you need to ferry around that it might be worth considering downsizing your car, I’m not talking classic mini sized but something that might take the edge off your policy.
If you’re a light car user with a low annual mileage then make sure you let your insurers know that on your insurance proposal. There’s no point in paying extra just in case, if you end up needing to update it later on to say that you will be covering more miles then do that.
We discovered that by paying the insurance in monthly instalments we were actually paying more than the one lump sum, s if you can afford to pay for the year in one go then it might be worth dong so to save a few ££s over the course of the year.
Over the past few years I have also noticed a rise in black box technology used in motoring. They are fitted to cars to monitor how you are driving, helping to reduce your insurance premiums if you are a careful driver.
I’m hoping that when it comes to sorting out my insurance that the quotes haven’t taken a drastic leap, after all my current quotes are coming in at between £800 – £1500 so I will definitely be shopping around with comparison sites like confused.com
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